We are happy to be able to share this recent essay by the American photo critic  A.D. Coleman . Mr. Coleman was the first photo critic for the New York Times, the Village Voice, and the New York Observer. His work has been published in countless publications within the last 45 years all over the world. He is one of the very first genuine photography critics to achieve an international reputation. He received the first Art Critic’s fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1976 and was a Fullbright scholar in 1994. Not only has he personally pioneered the whole discipline of photo criticism in the United States in a dogged and relentless way, but his books of collected essays, Depth of Field, and Tarnished Silver have chronicled much of the entire development of art photography in America since the mid 1960′s. Among the most important contributions he has made is the rare concept that a writer should actually study and look at the photographs he is writing about before he writes. He writes in a clear human style that doesn’t require the reader to constantly refer to a dictionary or an anthology of philosophy to understand it. Continue reading →